The principle that a university president should not speak about his prior political experience to political audiences, lest the public cry out for objectivity, is a strange one. Even stranger is the idea, aired recently, that a nonpartisan speech by that president to a nonpartisan but activist audience is enough to raise concerns about undue politicization […]
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In attending yesterday’s oral argument in a case contesting Michigan’s affirmative action ban, I was struck by the enormous evolution of the civil rights movement away from some of its original principles. At issue in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action was the legality of a state constitutional amendment, adopted by Michigan voters in 2006, by a 58-42% […]
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The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in an important Michigan affirmative action case, and the transcript reveals what a strange argument it was. The case is on appeal from the Sixth Circuit, whose eight Democratic-appointed judges had decided, over the bitter dissents of their seven Republican-appointed colleagues, that Michigan voters violated the 14th Amendment’s […]
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The government shutdown has brought scant good news, but there’s at least one positive development: the investigators at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have been deemed non-essential. As a result, OCR has been forced to postpone scheduled inspection visits, including one to Yale. That said, the shutdown at some point will end, and upon […]
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